Incidentally, in 20 years when the whole world is analyzing football the way that guys like Football Outsiders are doing it today, it will be interesting to see how the Manning/Brady debate is re-analyzed and conventional wisdom is thoroughly uprooted.

But how could that be when we all know because we've been told by every armchair evaluator on the planet that he's been sailing balls and inaccurate and just not himself and fixated on his binky's and not stepping into throws and holding the ball too long and forcing throws and obviously worried about his reconstructed knee and broken ribs and busted finger and new baby that he's simply not as good as he used to be and was lucky to get a third string pro bowl nod while Manning and Brees and Rivers are clearly MVP's based on their virtuoso performances coming back from nothing more than the usual unsuccessful previous seasons...

Context is a marvelous thing. Too bad nobody pays attention and it doesn't count for much in the greater scheme of things. It's easier to just opine that we're 10-6 and inconsistent because Brady wasn't quite right and Belichick is a screwup.

But how could that be when we all know because we've been told by every armchair evaluator on the planet that he's been sailing balls and inaccurate and just not himself and fixated on his binky's and not stepping into throws and holding the ball too long and forcing throws and obviously worried about his reconstructed knee and broken ribs and busted finger and new baby that he's simply not as good as he used to be and was lucky to get a third string pro bowl nod while Manning and Brees and Rivers are clearly MVP's based on their virtuoso performances coming back from nothing more than the usual unsuccessful previous seasons...

Context is a marvelous thing. Too bad nobody pays attention and it doesn't count for much in the greater scheme of things. It's easier to just opine that we're 10-6 and inconsistent because Brady wasn't quite right and Belichick is a screwup.

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I saw this article earlier and already got one "but Matt Cassel went 11-5 last year!" People don't like to look too deepy into things, do they?

Not completely accurate. Brady was ranked #1 in their "DYAR" stat, i.e "Defense-Adjusted Yards Above Replacement" at 2170 yards versus Manning's 2nd place at 1932 yards. Interestingly, before the adjustment for opposing defenses, Manning was #1 at 2017 yards and Brady #6 at 1799 yards. So the claim that Brady faced the most difficult pass defenses in 17 years seems to account for the difference between popular perception and FO's stats:

When it comes to individual stats, 2009 was emphatically a year for quarterbacks. Passing stats have never been better around the NFL. Tom Brady ends up leading the league with 2,170 passing DYAR, the fourth-highest total of the DVOA Era. Peyton Manning is second with 1,932 passing DYAR... and that's the fifth-highest total of the DVOA Era. In total, six quarterbacks from 2009 end up in the all-time top 15 for passing DYAR.

I know a number of readers disagree with the opponent adjustments that give Brady the season lead in passing value. As I noted in an Extra Points post a couple weeks ago, Brady has played against the hardest schedule of opposing pass defenses of any quarterback in the past 17 years. Six of his games came against the top four pass defenses according to DVOA, with four others against the Ravens (7), Saints (9), and Dolphins (11). Against all of these defenses, except for New Orleans, Brady outplayed most or all of his contemporaries. He had the second and fifth-highest DYAR totals allowed by the Jets this year. He had the highest DYAR total allowed by the Broncos, the highest DYAR total allowed by the Dolphins (in the Week 9 game), and the third-highest DYAR allowed by the Panthers. His 250 DYAR against the Bills in Week 1 was double what any other quarterback did against them for the rest of the season.

Incidentally, in 20 years when the whole world is analyzing football the way that guys like Football Outsiders are doing it today, it will be interesting to see how the Manning/Brady debate is re-analyzed and conventional wisdom is thoroughly uprooted.

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I dunno, you think 20 years will be enough to dispatch with the old guard wisdom?

I mean, Sabremetrics have been around in some form or another for 40-some-odd years, and yet you still have most of the commentators, columnists, and other sundry mediots talking in terms of RBI's, batting average, fielding %, etc. I mean, the Cy Young award still usually ends up going to the pitcher with the most "wins," even if it's clearly just because he's on a better hitting/fielding team. And baseball is a much more stat-friendly game than football.

We've still got some of the leagues better TV analysts, like Cris Collinsworth, still thinking that the Cardinals win when they run the ball more, rather than that the Cardinals run the ball more when they're already winning.

The conventional wisdom around the NFL is not going to change until the people dispensing it can get basic concepts like correlation and causation down.

Besides, both Manning and Brady's stats will look pedestrian to fans 20 years from now, who are used to quarterbacks throwing to receivers whom DBs cannot touch or tackle, but must try to bring down with loud noises and harsh words.

I dunno, you think 20 years will be enough to dispatch with the old guard wisdom?

I mean, Sabremetrics have been around in some form or another for 40-some-odd years, and yet you still have most of the commentators, columnists, and other sundry mediots talking in terms of RBI's, batting average, fielding %, etc. I mean, the Cy Young award still usually ends up going to the pitcher with the most "wins," even if it's clearly just because he's on a better hitting/fielding team. And baseball is a much more stat-friendly game than football.

We've still got some of the leagues better TV analysts, like Cris Collinsworth, still thinking that the Cardinals win when they run the ball more, rather than that the Cardinals run the ball more when they're already winning.

The conventional wisdom around the NFL is not going to change until the people dispensing it can get basic concepts like correlation and causation down.

Besides, both Manning and Brady's stats will look pedestrian to fans 20 years from now, who are used to quarterbacks throwing to receivers whom DBs cannot touch or tackle, but must try to bring down with loud noises and harsh words.

Maybe a few more TDs and yards, Kontra but I don't think we're looking at 07-type numbers here from TB if he hits on a few more plays...

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I don't think so either. But, then again, I think it will be a very long time before any QB breaks that record. Keep in mind that, when I say "much better", I'm not talking '07 numbers. That's just setting your expectations way too high. I was actually one of the people that laughed at the people predicting an '07 type season from Brady before the year started.